My GPU usage is at 99% while the computer is idle

redvandamMar 21, 2012, 3:21 PM

What could be causing this?

The night before I was gaming like normal but when I powered up my computer today and fired up the game it was laggy and choppy.

Upon restarting my compuer I notice that after a few moments of being left idle the GPU usage will shoot up to 99%. I am guessing this is the root cause of the issue since the game can't access enough of the GPU to run properly but what is causing my GPU to work so hard when it's doing nothing?

So far the only troubleshooting I've tried is taking out the GPU, giving it a cleaning and putting it back into my system but that didn't do anything.

Does anyone have any suggestion on things I could try to resolve this? Thanks.

It sounds like someone installed something like Seti on it so the video card crunches numbers. Have you tried to see what is running on the PC that is using the video card like in task manager? You should be able to see a running process.

Try safe mode and make sure it isn't doing the same thing. If it isn't like it should, then boot up like normal and disable all your startup items by running msconfig and see if it solved the problem. If that works then troubleshoot to figure out what program is doing it.

I would follow up on what ahnilated suggested. Did you install any kind of distributed computing application? Examples include BOINC, Folding @Home, SETI @Home, and/or a Bitcoin miner. They are supposed to detect when you need your GPU and slow or shut down, but if not I'd uninstall it and TS for them.

I am getting the same thing he is experiencing... just started in the last month for me. I've actually tried to do everything in the last 24 hours and even gave up to a re-format and clean install... it is definitely something with AMD/ATI drivers though as when I re-install the lastest for XP-32 bit... the problem came right back and the only way to get it to go away seems to be to go into stand-by mode and come back out of it. What the hell is causing this issue? and what AMD/ATI driver would be safe to fall back to... I already tried the 11.12 version everyone said it fixed this issue on other forums... but that did not work for me. Any other ideas short of buying a new vid card that isn't AMD/ATI lol?

Was there ever any fix on this? As I just read other forums that were going on just in the last 4 months also having this issue? No one ever mentions a fix though as everyone seems to quit after discussing it half way. If so... someone please tell me... short of just throwing my videocard out the window... lol

I solved the issue for now by disabling crossfire and than later enabling it agian and it stopped using 100% of the gpu i am not sure if this is a permanet fix as i have not tried starting a game or restarting my pc to see if the gpu usage shoots up agian yet.